The Adidas jacket, and the question of cultural remixing
When we first saw the Adidas “New Chinese Style” jacket, what caught our attention wasn’t only the design.
It was the reaction around it.
Some people said: everything is fair game.
That culture should be remixed freely, rules broken, references taken without restraint. That nothing should be too “precious.”
We understand where this idea comes from.
It reflects a very Western relationship to culture, one where creativity is often defined by rupture, reinvention, and distance from the past.
But as Vietnamese, as Asians, this is not how culture was transmitted to us.
Tradition is not raw material
In many Asian cultures, tradition is not something you mine for inspiration.
It is something you inherit.
It is carried through repetition, through gesture, through care.
Through family meals. Through rituals that are not explained, but practiced. Through clothing that is worn not to stand out, but to mark time, respect, and belonging.
This does not mean tradition is static.
Adaptation exists, it always has.
But adaptation is expected to stay in dialogue with what came before.
Not to overwrite it. Not to flatten it into surface.
Why the Adidas jacket created discomfort
The discomfort around the Adidas jacket was not about whether cultures can evolve.
Of course they can.
It was about how cultural forms were approached.
When garments that carry historical, social, and emotional weight are treated primarily as aesthetic references, something essential is lost. Not beauty, but coherence.
For many Asian viewers, especially those in the diaspora, this kind of adaptation feels familiar.
We have seen our cultures reduced to silhouettes, colors, motifs, detached from the systems of meaning that gave them life in the first place.
What is presented as “innovation” often feels like erasure.
One cultural logic does not apply everywhere
The problem is not remixing itself.
It is assuming that one cultural logic applies universally.
The idea that culture exists to be freely broken, recombined, and consumed is not neutral.
It comes from a specific historical and cultural position, one that has long held global power.
In many Asian contexts, culture functions differently.
It is relational. It is collective. It is rooted in continuity rather than rupture.
To ignore this difference is not radical.
It is simply careless.
Culture is not a moodboard
Culture is not a set of visuals waiting to be used.
It is a living system.
It changes, yes, but it changes through listening, not extraction.
Through understanding, not acceleration.
As Vietnamese, as Asians, we live in between worlds.
We know what it means to adapt.
We also know what it means to lose meaning along the way.
That is why these conversations matter to us.
Not to gatekeep.
Not to moralize.
But to remind ourselves, and others, that innovation does not come from taking more. It comes from listening better.
